Tuggar: Tinubu to Push Nigeria’s Position on Climate Change at UAE Summit

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

As this year’s sustainability summit gets underway in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, yesterday said that President Bola Tinubu is expected to address world leaders on Nigeria’s position on global climate change.

Addressing newsmen, the minister declared that the President will use the forum this week to address Nigeria’s position in the general global discourse on climate change “and on sustainability, describing it as very important.  “It’s not just about averting climate change but doing it in such a way that it is sustainable,” he said.

Tinubu, who’s attending the summit on the invitation of the President of the United Arab Emirates, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, according to Tuggar, is expected to make a presentation before the world leaders at the annual summit.

He added: “All I can tell you is that he is going to talk about Nigeria’s focus in terms of deliverables vis-a-vis climate change.”

The minister further revealed that the President will use the opportunity to sign some bilateral agreements with his United Arab Emirates counterpart as well as interested UAE investors.

He added: “And in the case of Nigeria, we have a deficit in terms of project preparation. So this presents an opportunity to come with identified projects and try and source the funding from some of the countries and the organisations that are going to be in attendance. Last year Nigeria also participated at that previous event.

“Now some partnerships were engendered at that time. Where are we now? What is Nigeria doing currently with the government of the UAE and where are we taking it? We are even taking it further because President Tinubu is going to have a bilateral with the President of the United Arab Emirates, His Highness Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

“And one of the things to be discussed there is the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which is expected to be signed during that bilateral agreement. So this sort of concretise some of the discussions that have been going on and some of the investment opportunities.

“This is because a lot of investors from the UAE side are saying they want that agreement to be signed so that they ensure their investments will be protected once it’s signed and they come in with the investments.”

On the Nigerian side, Tuggar stated that it also protects the investment of Nigerians, since  a lot of Nigerians do business in Dubai.

“Some actually even have factories and so forth. So this further protects them and it also dignifies the Nigerian. For us, we want to ensure that the dignity of Nigerians is upheld and Nigerians are respected wherever they go to invest, wherever they go to visit,” he added.